


Miami

by codswallop



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Community: cabinpres_fic, Community: kink_bingo, Humor, M/M, Medical Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the cabinpres_fic prompt: Douglas/Martin medfet. Martin isn't feeling entirely well, but isn't so sick that he needs to go the doctor's and he has a van job later that day anyway. Douglas sees this and offers his (dubious) expertise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miami

“Miami,” Douglas pronounced, gazing out the taxicab window. “City of the scantily clad. The scantily clad, and many well-dressed yappy dogs; have you noticed this, Martin?”

"Mm," said Martin.

“It’s a mercy Carolyn didn’t see fit to join us on this run,” Douglas went on. “She’d have been perpetually torn between tutting and cooing. Great heavens, there’s another--surely that can’t be legal even here. _And_ she’s got a Yorkie on a lead; I do believe it’s wearing more than she is. Are you seeing this? Double points to me.”

“Not playing,” Martin murmured, closing his eyes and pressing his cheek to the windowpane. “It’s six-fifteen, Douglas. Bugger off.”

“Nonsense. It’s nearly lunch hour at home. We haven’t been here nearly long enough to be on Eastern Standard. Bit of a morning after the night before, is it? You young scalawag, you.”

“Yes,” Martin said. “I’m hung over, Douglas. Well spotted. Leave me alone.”

“And obviously you didn’t manage to pull, or you’d be in a much better mood. With an English accent in an American bar, and in full uniform, too, as I’ve no doubt you were--it simply defies all odds. Perhaps you should try a new aftershave? Something to mask that overwhelming miasma of pathos and despair you exude from every pore? I imagine it _would_ be rather off-putting to most.”

Martin didn’t rise to the bait. Martin was asleep, or doing an excellent job of faking. Douglas sighed, and went back to appreciating the unique couture of the early-morning Floridian dog-walking population on his own.

*

It wasn’t until they’d boarded Gerti and were performing the preliminary cross-checks that it occurred to Douglas to become concerned. Martin wasn’t just being annoyingly silent, he was _worryingly_ silent, and had gone paler than a cheese. Not a nice cheese. A nasty, off-colour, rubbery cheese that had been left out to sweat at room temperature for far longer than advisable.

“Emergency exits... _not_ secure,” Douglas said casually, testing. He waited. And waited. “Hanging wide open, in fact. Oh well. We enjoy living dangerously, don’t we, Sir?”

Martin continued his sweaty cheese impression. He fixed the instrument panel with a glaze-eyed thousand-yard stare and clutched at his stomach.

“Ahem,” Douglas prompted. “ _Captain_ Crieff?”

“What? Fine. Good. Fine. Ready, yes, fine.”

“Oh, dear,” Douglas said, and reached over to take his wrist.

“I beg your pardon!” Martin tried to snatch it back, but Douglas held on.

“Pardon emphatically not given. Shut up for a minute, there’s a good captain...yes, that’s a lovely pulse rate, very healthy--if, that is, you happen to be a _mouse_.”

“Don’t be--” Martin sucked in a sudden gasp of air mid-retort and doubled over in his seat, wincing. “Oh, god,” he said miserably.

Douglas picked up the radio. “Golf Tango India to ATC,” he began, and waited for acknowledgement. “Requesting can--”

Martin came suddenly back to life and slapped off the radio.

“--cellation of flight plan,” Douglas continued to no one. “Martin, don’t be a child. It’s obvious you’re too ill to fly. Let’s take the ‘no, honestly I’m fine,’ ‘no, you’re really, really not’ conversation as read; it bores me. I’ll phone for a taxi back to the hotel--or possibly one a degree or two less vile, if you’ve no objections--”

“No, honestly, I _am_ fine,” Martin said.

“I am very disappointed in you, Martin.”

“But I’ve got to get back to Fitton tonight. There’s a job with the van in the morning. I’ve had to cancel three deliveries already this month because of last-minute scheduling changes--I can’t do without this one, Douglas, I absolutely have to follow through.” There was a desperation in his voice that spoke of bounced cheques and Pot Noodles.

“ _Were_ you drinking last night?” Douglas asked gently.

“No,” Martin admitted. “Unless fizzy water counts. No, I’ve just got a bit of a-- _oh god_.” He doubled over again, and Douglas was both alarmed and impressed by the way the colour managed to drain from his already nearly colourless face. He started to rise, but Martin was already clawing his way up out of his seat and staggering rapidly from the flight deck.

The terrible retching sounds coming from the forward toilet lasted for quite some time. The silence after that lasted even longer. Douglas was nearly on the point of tapping on the door when the latch turned and Martin emerged, looking shaky and ashen.

“--Bit of a bad stomach,” he said.

“Come on.” Douglas grasped him by the elbow and propelled him into the cabin, sitting him down in 1B and reclining the seat back as far as it would go, then perching on the armrest across the aisle to contemplate the problem.

“Have to get back,” Martin murmured, eyes shut. “You can fly us out. I’ll co-pilot.”

“From the loo? That should prove amusing. No, I agree I’m perfectly capable of getting us home on my own. Piloting a transatlantic flight whilst performing an emergency appendectomy using nothing but galley utensils, however--now that may be beyond even my considerable skills.”

Martin blinked. “What? I haven’t got appendicitis.”

“No? How reassuring of you to say so. Had your appendix out already, have you?”

“Well. No. No, in fact."

Douglas reached out and brushed the damp fringe away from Martin’s eyes, allowing the backs of his fingers to linger on his forehead for a moment or two. “Definitely feverish,” he said. Martin jerked a little when he touched him, then shivered and closed his eyes again, looking ridiculously vulnerable. "When did this start?” Douglas demanded briskly.

“Last night,” Martin said. “Middle of the night. Woke me up.”

“Is the pain localised? Has it shifted since it started up?”

“You sound like a doctor. Oh.” Martin managed a weak grin. “That’s right, you were one. Almost were. Going to be. No, it’s a bit...all over, really, but mostly...well, here. Ish.” He pointed, vaguely.

There was an awkward pause of sorts before they both spoke at once.

“Can I--”

“You could--”

Douglas cleared his throat. “Right, pull up your shirt, let’s have a look.”

*

Douglas had been taught, and still remembered, the principles of a basic abdominal examination. He knew was he was doing, in theory.

The trouble was that in practice, he needed to turn his mind off entirely in order to distract himself from the absurdity of the situation. This was _Martin_. He was _touching Martin's abdomen._ It was miles beyond inappropriately intimate; it probably broke some sort of inappropriateness world record in the International Inappropriate Olympics.

He couldn't even think of anything amusing to say, and that was saying something.

"Tell me when it hurts," he said, hoping he at least sounded drippingly ironic, and began pressing gently. Martin had a very nice stomach, it turned out: lean, well-muscled. Warm. Well, it would be, wouldn't it, with the fever. "All right here?" he said, glancing up. Martin was staring thoughtfully at the cabin ceiling, looking mildly concerned but not at all agonised.

"I suppose so," he said doubtfully. "Sort of just...Ugh, but not Ow."

"Probably not your appendix, then," Douglas conceded, pressing a little less gently into Martin's lower right side. "Or there'd be all kinds of Ow when I did this. No rigidity, no localised tenderness--it's most likely either a stomach virus or a touch of food poisoning."

"Gosh, you do sound like a doctor." Martin gave a nervous laugh. "You'd have been...very good at it, I imagine."

"Of course I would have." Douglas still had a hand lightly resting on Martin's stomach, because it would have seemed like an admission of something, were he to jerk it away too quickly. Perfectly normal to be touching his co-worker's bare abdomen on a Friday morning in Miami; he'd done odder things in the line of duty, surely. Though he couldn't exactly think of any at the moment.

He risked another glance up at Martin's face, intending to give him a sardonic smile--surely _le mot juste_ would come to him at any moment, it always did--but the smile twisted and the words dried up, because Martin swallowed with a click and stared straight back at him, eyes wide, biting his lower lip, and he looked--

Oh, hell and damn.

 _Kissable_.

And then, just then--Douglas never could decide afterward if it was a saving grace or a just punishment for his many sins--the outer door squealed open and Arthur burst in on the scene.

"Hello, chaps! Sorry I'm late. My friend's alarm clock was a bit--oh, hello, what are you-- Oh. Oh! Sorry! Sorry! I'll just...be elsewhere for a bit, then, shall I? Sorry! Wow! I mean...sorry!

"Douglas," Martin said. "This is not meant as a personal commentary, I swear it, but I'm about to be sick again."

*

It was as well that Martin was heaving his guts up the entire time that Douglas tried to explain the situation to Arthur. Much less complicated that way. Which was to say, still enormously complicated, but at least not hampered by Martin’s muddled and stammering protests.

“It’s really fine, though!” Arthur said for about the dozenth time. “I don’t mind at all! I think it’s rather nice! Well, a bit weird to be doing it on the plane, I suppose. But I know role-playing can be very...I’ve done it myself, or, not _by_ myself, but with a friend...not playing doctor, that is, but we had a scenario once, once or twice, several times actually, in which she was Professor Snape and I--”

“Yes, _thank you_ , Arthur, I’ve had more than enough of the stuff of nightmares to last me for one day. For several days, in fact. I appreciate your reassurance and understanding, but in point of fact, Martin and I were not _playing_ anything. Martin is--quite genuinely, I assure you--very ill. If you’ll stop telling me it’s fine for two seconds together, you may hear the sounds of his illness issuing forth, along with everything he’s consumed for the past week and a half.”

They listened.

“Oh,” said Arthur. “Oh, I see. That’s too bad. I mean--it really looked as though you were about to kiss him, when I came in.”

“Yes, well,” said Douglas, “I wasn’t.”

“Oh.” Arthur looked crestfallen. “Well. Poor old Skip. Is he okay?”

“Not _particularly_ okay, no. But not terminal,” Douglas added, as Arthur’s crest fell still further. “Is he flightworthy? That is the question.”

“Douglas, it is imperative that I get home tonight,” Martin rasped, reappearing in the doorway. “You said yourself it’s not appendicitis, and you can fly the plane solo perfectly well--”

“Certainly. Unless it’s a virus, in which case there is every likelihood that the next person to be infected will be the one who was stuck in a flying closet with you less than a day ago, breathing in your germ-infested exhalations for nine hours and twenty-five minutes."

“Ah,” said Martin.

“Yes. Is the Atlantic Ocean _very_ cold at this time of year, do you suppose? Please sit down before you fall down, Martin; I’m much less confident about my scalp-stitching technique than I am my ability to diagnose minor gastrointestinal illnesses. Arthur, fetch him some water, will you?"

Martin sank back down gingerly into 1B, holding himself as if he might fly to pieces at any moment. "The thing is...I'm fairly sure it's food poisoning."

"Why? What did you eat last night?"

Martin shifted in his seat. "Suspicious...things. Things I have reason to suspect might have been...suspicious."

"Martin," Douglas said warningly.

"All right, it was Arthur's pilchard loaf from the back of the galley fridge!" Martin wailed. "From Carolyn's last economical fit.”

“Oh, Skip, that was ages ago,” Arthur said, bringing in a serving tray with about a dozen two-ounce cups of water on it. “Weeks! Sorry, we’re all out of regular size. Was it any better the second time around?”

“Third,” Martin confessed. “I had it last week in Vienna as well.”

"Wow! You must have really liked it, then! That's brilliant!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Arthur," Douglas told him. "No one likes your cooking. Martin's been squirreling away his overnight travel meal allowance for his own purposes, it would seem. Meager though it is."

"It's not stealing! There's nothing wrong with it!" Martin insisted, half rising from his seat, then sank back down holding his stomach with a pained hiss. "It may be meager to you, but it's a week's rent to me," he went on hoarsely. "The money gets spent whether I use it for its intended purpose or not, so I don't see what the difference is."

"The difference, Captain, is that one course of action leads to the three of us being grounded in Miami for an extra day while I haul you round to some wretched emergency clinic--doesn't that sound like fun?"

"Yes, and the other leads to me being evicted! Much more fun, I take it."

"For me, yes."

"Douglas," Arthur interrupted. " _Should_ we take him to a clinic? He does look awfully...well, awful. I don't think people are supposed to be that shade of grey."

"Douglas, no," Martin said. "I've simply got to make that delivery in the morning. What do you want? Anything. I mean it: _anything_."

There was a longish pause.

"See of you can get at least three or four of those down and keep them down," Douglas said finally, nodding at Arthur's tray of miniature cups. "As much as I hate to admit it, there are a number of reasons why I'd prefer that you didn't dehydrate to death mid-flight on the way back to Fitton. I'll contact ATC and see if we can get a half-hour delay without incurring fees."

*

It was a very hollowed-out Martin who emerged from the plane at Fitton Airfield that evening. Arthur looked rather shaken and worse for wear as well (“I didn’t think human beings held anywhere _near_ that much fluid!” he confided to Douglas one point. “That was completely amazing, in a, you know, a disgusting sort of way,”) but he heroically volunteered to stay behind and hose things down while Douglas ran the Skipper home in his car.

They were both very silent during the drive. Douglas was feeling uncharacteristically short on quips, and they’d have been wasted anyhow on such a lackluster audience. Martin drooped against the passenger seat, clearly done in by his ordeal, allowing Douglas plenty of opportunity to observe him surreptitiously whenever they came to a traffic light. The upheaval of his insides had ceased several hours before, thankfully, and Arthur had been plying him with every non-alcoholic liquid on the plane, so dehydration probably wasn’t a danger at this point; the man was simply exhausted.

Martin didn’t open his eyes when they came to a stop outside his house, and Douglas hesitated for a ridiculous length of time before reaching across to give him a slight shake. “Oh,” Martin said, sitting up quickly, bleary-eyed. “That was fast. Thank you, Douglas. I mean...really, really thanks, for everything, the whole...you know, just...thanks. A lot. If you ever...well, you wouldn’t, obviously, but...anything, I did really mean it, when I said...well. If--”

“Two things, in fact,” Douglas said crisply. “One: stop babbling at once and never bring this up again. Two: the keys to your van.”

Martin looked confused, then suspicious. “My... _what_? Why?”

“And the address for your job tomorrow. All right, that makes three things, technically; we’ll call it two and a half.”

“Douglas--you’re not--”

“Planning on doing your pickup and delivery for you in the morning? Assuredly not. No, I’m going to make Arthur do it. Such are his deserts for neglecting to clean out the galley fridge on a more regular basis. The keys, Martin,” he demanded, holding out his hand and putting on his most alpha of alpha expressions.

He was prepared for a tiresome argument, but Martin’s eyes went wide and he yielded instantly. “They’re...in my flight bag,” he gulped. “And the address. I’ll just fetch them from your boot.”

“Good,” said Douglas. “And remember: _never bring this up again._ ”

*  
*  
*

“The two of you,” Carolyn announced via satcom some days later, when they were in the sky over Cornwall, “are as dull as a wet weekend. A wet weekend during the Flood.”

“Oh, tell us about the Flood, Carolyn,” Douglas said. “I’ve always longed for a first-hand account.”

“You see? Right there. I put that one straight into your hands, Douglas, and that was where you chose to go with it? Not up to your usual standard in the least. Why do I continue to employ you?”

“To fly your aeroplane, I imagine?”

“Anyone can do that. Look at Martin.”

“Yes, I am _right here listening,_ thank you,” Martin put in.

“Good,” Carolyn said, “because you’re not holding up your end either. I don’t ask for much, just a minimal amount of witty repartee from my pilots, and I shall have it. Whatever lovers’ quarrel you two have going on, you are to mend it at once, do you understand?

Crashing silence from the flight deck.

“Oh good Lord, this is worse than I thought,” said Carolyn. “Arthur? Are you listening in?”

“No, Mum!”

“Right. Are you aware of whatever is going on between Martin and Douglas?”

“Arthur!” Douglas said, but not quickly enough.

“Nothing’s going on between them, Mum,” Arthur said helpfully. “Douglas explained it to me, the day they weren’t playing doctor in the cabin and weren’t about to kiss.”

 _“Arthur!”_ Douglas repeated. Martin said nothing, but his ears had gone a startling shade of red.

“I don’t want to know, I do _not_ want to know, I absolutely _do not_ want to know,” Carolyn told them. “Just...sort it. Land the plane, and sort it. Arthur, withhold coffee from them until they’ve sorted it. I’ll be in the loo for the next half hour, applying bleach to my brain.”

Another silence descended, even more crashing than before.

“Weren’t...about to kiss?” Martin said eventually, in a small, constricted-sounding voice.

“Certainly _not_ ,” said Douglas.

“No, of...of course not.” Martin gave a high-pitched laugh. “Ridiculous Arthur. Getting everything wrong end up as usual. Only...it’s funny, at the time I did almost think...I think I must have been a bit delirious, actually.” He laughed nervously again. “I was terribly ill that day.”

If pity was an unbearable thing to feel towards one’s younger, hopelessly pathetic colleague with whom one was trapped in close proximity for many hours per week, inappropriate physical attraction was much worse. Douglas wished for nothing more than some of Carolyn’s brain bleach, to wash the image from his mind of Martin’s warm skin beneath his hands, Martin’s slim stomach bared and trembling, yielding to his touch--

“Loathsomely ill,” Douglas agreed.

“Quite,” said Martin. He went silent once more. He was staring at Douglas’s hands on the instrument panel, Douglas noticed. He seemed to have been doing that a lot recently.

“Douglas, I can’t stand it,” Martin burst out after another few moments. “I know you don’t want to hear it and I did promise not to bring it up, but I can’t stop myself _thinking_. I keep having fantasies about that day, about you making me strip off and touching me _all over_ , and I know that’s absolutely the most appalling thing I’ve ever said to you, but I can’t help it. I realise you were just being kind and you’re embarrassed by it now, and that’s fine, really, so...I’m just going to have to resign from MJN, it’s the only solution, but I thought you ought to know why. And I’ll shut up now.”

“Good heavens, Martin,” said Douglas.

“Yes,” said Martin, miserably, “I know.”

“That was quite a speech.”

“Yes, I _know_ ,” Martin repeated, a touch more irritably. “You’ve got a good fifteen or twenty minutes before we land to mock me now; have at it, you may as well, I can’t possibly be any more humiliated. Today’s the end of it, though.”

"Oh, I don't know, Captain," Douglas told him. "That's an awfully rash decision, isn't it? Makes me wonder if you're really quite yourself today."

"Douglas, stop. Whatever you're trying to do, it's not--"

"As a matter of fact, you're looking rather peaky, I'd say. You may need to have someone check you over, when you get on the ground again."

"Oh, god," Martin said. "Douglas. Don't."

 _"Thoroughly,"_ Douglas added, pitching his voice into a low purr.

The plane took a sudden steep dip and swerve, and there was an alarmed shout from the galley.

"All right in there, chaps?" Arthur called through nervously. "That was unexpectedly exciting!"

"Yes, it was, wasn't it?" Douglas called back. “I think I’ll be taking the landing today; the captain seems to have come over with a touch of the collywobbles. Oh, and you’re all clear to bring in the coffee now, I’d say.”

“Excellent news! Only it’s a bit...spilled, at the moment. I’ll just make some more, shall I?”

“No need,” Douglas told him. “We’ll be on the ground shortly.”

*

“I don’t know why I find this so terribly--oh!--arousing,” Martin gasped, as Douglas finished unbuttoning his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. “Do you suppose there’s a part of me that wants to be, well, ordered around by you? You are very good at it, I have to admit, and perhaps it’s less threatening for me in this type of scenario than--”

“Stop talking, Martin,” Douglas told him, and left off kissing his collarbones to press an ear to his chest. “Deep breath? Hmm, yes--your heart rate seems dangerously elevated. I’m going to need to give you a proper going-over."

"Yes, _god,_ yes," Martin moaned, looking so sweetly flushed and disarrayed that Douglas couldn't resist rising up to capture his lower lip gently with his mouth, and that was when Arthur walked in on them again.

"Kissing!" he cried triumphantly. "That is definitely kissing! You aren't not playing this time! Yes, I know--leaving now, didn't see a thing, won't tell Mum," he added quickly, and ducked back out.

"Absolutely not playing," Douglas murmured, before Martin could react. "Lie back now, please, and try to relax--this won't hurt a bit," he went on, and reached for Martin's belt.


End file.
